1999 History/Videos

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1999 The worlds population exceeds Six Billion.
The Wars in the Balkans continue to cause suffering in the region, but
both sides do come to the table and a peace is agreed. The world prepares
for the new millennium parties and computers around the world run testing
for the millennium bug which could cause wide scale disruption to business
and infrastructure if not fixed. The take up of the Internet and Mobile
Phones around the world open up new opportunities for successful entrepreneurs.

Cost of Living 1999

How Much things cost in 1999
Yearly Inflation Rate USA 2.19%
Year End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 11,497
Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 8.50%
Average Cost of new house $131,750.00
Average Income per year $40,810.00
Average Monthly Rent $645.00
Cost of a gallon of Gas $1.22
Average cost of new car $21,050.00
US Postage Stamp 33 cents
1 LB of Bacon $2.59
Ground Coffee per LB $3.41
Loaf of Bread $1.49
Dozen Eggs 89 cents

What Events Happened in 1999

Renewed fighting
between Pakistan and India over Kashmir

Democracy restored to Indonesia

Ford Acquires Volvo

2 Devastating Earthquakes kill 14,000 people
in Turkey

Serbs accelerate ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
Albanians leading to a NATO bombing attack

New multi party assembly in Northern Ireland
meets restoring self rule after 22 years

European Union bans Beef Imports from
the US over the widespread use of growth hormones

The human population of the world surpassed
six billion.

Euro currency introduced

Great Britain Introduces the Minimum
Hourly Wage Rate of all adults must be paid at least £3.60 an
hour

Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones circumnavigate
the world in a hot air balloon without stopping.

A F5 tornado slams in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
killing 38 people

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes
above 11,000 for the first time

The International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan
Miloevic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Kosovo

Lance Armstrong wins first Tour de
France.

A powerful, magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits
Athens, killing 143 people

Earthquake in central Taiwan kills about 2,400
people.

Jack Kervorkian was sentenced for the
second-degree murder of Thomas Youk (assisted suicide).

New US Gun Control Bill Rejected for
new controls going too far, and new controls not going far enough.

Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove
rail crash, west of London, England.

Osama bin Laden sets his Al-Qaeda terrorist
base in Afghanistan ( he is on the FBI's Most wanted List ) following
involvment in American embassey bombings in Africa

U.S. women's soccer team wins the FIFA Women's
World Cup champions

Total Eclipse Of The Sun Is Seen In cities
of Europe and Asia

The Liberty Bell space capsule recovered
in Florida during an expedition sponsored by the Discovery Channel.

Start of Millennium celebrations
worldwide (technically the Millennium started in 2001 not 2000).

Popular Culture 1999

Popular Films

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

The Sixth Sense

Toy Story 2

The Matrix

Tarzan

The Mummy

Notting Hill

The World Is Not Enough

American Beauty

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

American Pie

October Sky

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Popular Musicians

Lenny Kravitz

Sarah McLachlan

Britney Spears

Enrique Iglesias

Kid Rock

Madonna

Cher

S Club 7

Ko?n

Christina Aguilera

Whitney Houston

Mariah Carey

Backstreet Boys

Jennifer Lopez

Pearl Jam

Foo Fighters

Ricky Martin

Eminem

Limp Bizkit

The Offspring

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Santana

Shania Twain

TLC

Blink-182

Phil Collins

New Radicals

Popular Television

Simpsons

Beverly Hills 90210

Frasier

The X-Files

Chicago Hope

ER

Friends

7th Heaven

Everybody Loves Raymond

Ally McBeal

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

King of the Hill

South Park

The Practice

The Wonderful World of Disney

Becker

Charmed

Dawson's Creek

Sex and the City

That '70s Show

The King of Queens

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Will & Grace

Technology 1999

Internet Explorer
version 5 released

The "Melissa" e-mail virus, infects
more than 1 million computers worldwide causing more than $80 million
in damage, clogging up E-Mail Systems around the world

The year 2000 problem known as the Y2K problem
and the millennium bug was the most important thing on most companies
minds in 1999. Critical industries (such as electricity or financial)
and government functions could stop working at 12:00 AM, January 1,
2000. This fear was fueled by the press coverage and other media speculation,
as well as corporate and government reports. All over the world companies
and organizations checked and upgraded their computer systems.

My Space was officially introduced to the
Internet

Bluetooth announced.

The initial release of Napster

The genetic code that comprise the euchromatic
portion of human chromosome 22 is released into the public domain for
the good of mankind.

I have been asked why I have included Myspace
in 1999 rather than the official launch in 2003 . ( When I used archive.org
to look back MySpace was changed in 1999 from a site for virtual storage
to a social networking site ) although very different than today.